


Something Changes

by earlybloomingparentheses



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Episode Related, Episode: s01e10 Out of Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 04:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1415635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlybloomingparentheses/pseuds/earlybloomingparentheses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cardiff, Christmastime, 2007. Jack comes home smelling of gas, and Ianto washes him clean, and something changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Changes

The sex was never supposed to be anything but sex.  

Ianto went into it with his eyes open: if he was going to start something with Jack, it would have to be casual, because Jack only _did_ casual. Ianto knew that if he betrayed the first sign of _need_ —need for comfort or affection or redemption or love—Jack would become nothing but the tail of his coat whipping around a corner as he fled. And really, all this was so new for Ianto (being attracted to a man, being attracted to _anyone_ after Lisa) that even the prospect of casual sex with Jack was honestly almost more than Ianto could handle, so he willingly locked up any flickers of _feelings_ he might have about his boss and came up with a clever line about a stopwatch. Which he executed flawlessly, to his considerable relief. He’d practiced saying it in the mirror until he could do it without flinching, without looking away, without grinning embarrassedly or blushing or giving away just how green he really was. Jack had taken it in stride (he had been flirting with Ianto since day one, after all), and the sex had been—well. Frankly, it had been mind-blowing, at least for Ianto. 

It’s been a month since then, and they’ve slept together three more times. Ianto feels that he is handling it admirably well. True, sometimes the team will be gathered for a meeting and Ianto will suddenly remember what Jack looks like naked, which makes him blush, or Jack will put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder and Ianto will startle and stumble, but that’s all just normal sleeping-with-the-boss stuff. Ianto supposes so, anyway. The point is that he doesn’t ask for anything more from Jack, and as far as he is concerned, he never will. 

But it isn't Ianto who changes things.

Down the road, maybe, once lines have already been crossed and rules broken, Ianto is responsible for many of the feelings that eventually entangle them like spiderwebs, thick and dense and impossibly tangled. But not now. Not this first time, on the night that sets everything in motion far more than a quip about a stopwatch does. No, this—this first shift, the first step over the lines which Jack himself has drawn—this is Jack’s doing. 

It’s the night Jack comes home smelling of gas. 

Christmastime, 2007, and three people have fallen through the rift from 1953, exploding into the lives of the Torchwood team and hurtling out of them again as fast as they’d come, leaving wreckage in their wake. Emma has gone to London, Diane has flown back into the rift, and several hours ago John turned on the engine in Ianto’s car and sat in the garage until he asphyxiated. Somehow, in some unknown capacity, Jack must have been there, because when he turns up at the Hub late that night he smells heavily of gas. 

He reports John’s death in a flat tone and then goes up to his office, where Ianto can see him standing there, not moving, staring dully across the room. After twenty minutes of this, Ianto realizes that someone is going to have to do something about it. 

Torchwood causes more than its fair share of psychological trauma—Ianto knows that as well as anyone—and one might think they’d all get better at dealing with it as time goes on. But they don’t, not really. Ianto considers the likelihood of each of his coworkers proving useful to Jack tonight. Gwen springs to mind first, as she often does. She and Jack share an odd sort of bond, and after all she’s supposed to be the emotional one, the human one—but what that really means is that she’s usually too busy having feelings of her own to help manage anyone else’s. For reasons Ianto can’t begin to fathom, Emma’s departure has hit her hard, and she muttered something about going home to Rhys and left right after Jack turned up. Owen has come and gone, too (not that Ianto would dream of sending him to deal with anyone’s feelings, ever); he slammed into the Hub, shouted something about getting Diane back from the rift and exploded in fury when Tosh told him it was impossible, and then plunged back out into the cold winter night. If Ianto didn’t know Owen better, he’d say that Owen really cared about Diane’s departure—maybe even loved her a little bit. Ianto doesn’t know what to think of that, except that clearly Owen will not be of any help tonight. 

There’s Tosh, of course, and she at least has noticed Jack standing dully at his window, still wearing his coat. She’d be willing to make a go of it, Ianto would bet, but she shouldn’t have to, not tonight. She doesn’t have to say anything for Ianto to see how shaken up she is by Owen’s involvement with Diane. He’d bet that all Tosh wants to do is go home and eat a tub of ice cream and try and forget that Torchwood exists. It’s what he’d do in her position. 

So they have a silent conversation from across the room and he jerks his head at the doorway, telling her to go. She mouths a grateful ‘good luck’ as she leaves, the tears already starting in her eyes. 

And then it’s just down to Ianto. 

He puts on his professional persona, the one he’s crafted from a lifetime of keeping his head down and avoiding his dad’s attention: deferential, unobtrusive, helpful without being obsequious. He can hide a lot behind that front (and of course he has) but tonight he is only masking trepidation, the flutter of worry that Jack will not want him to try and help. He squares his shoulders and walks up the stairs to Jack’s office. 

He knocks, but when Jack doesn’t answer, he goes in anyway. Jack barely acknowledges his presence, still staring into space with haunted eyes. The smell of gas is strong enough that Ianto wants to cover his nose and mouth, but he resists, keeping his expression mild. 

“We’d better get you out of that coat, sir.” 

Jack half turns his head to face Ianto. “I appreciate your eagerness, Ianto, but I’m not really up for it tonight,” he quips bleakly. At least, Ianto hopes very much that he is joking, both because he finds it embarrassing that Jack might think him so insensitive as to ask for sex tonight, and because Jack refusing sex with such grim seriousness is, in Ianto’s experience, unprecedented. 

“I only meant that it smells of gas, sir. I’ll need to have it dry cleaned.” 

Jack doesn’t flinch, but it’s close. He allows Ianto to slide the coat off his shoulders, making no effort to help or hinder him. His eyes are faintly red and Ianto wonders with a tiny shock if he’s been crying. 

Jack is such an inscrutable man, Ianto thinks (not by any means for the first time). He keeps himself so buttoned up around his coworkers, the people he sees every day, the people he fights with and stares down life or death with; they know almost nothing about him, and while he’s ready with a comforting hand for Tosh or Gwen he rarely betrays so much as a sliver of his own emotions. And yet from time to time they encounter something on the job—a certain alien, a particular incident, a lost traveler from 1953—that seems to crack through Jack’s impenetrable shell, turning up feelings of shocking depth and resonance. He’ll never let Ianto so much as glimpse what’s going on inside his head, but the now twice-lost John, a man whom Ianto is certain Jack would not even have liked under normal circumstances, sparked feelings of kinship and sorrow and, now, this dull, listless grief, simply by killing himself decades after he was already supposed to be dead. 

“Your clothes, sir,” Ianto says quietly. “They smell of gas, too.” 

Jack nods and reaches for the buttons of his shirt. Ianto arrests his motion with a brief touch on the wrist. 

“Why don’t we get you to the shower.” 

Jack allows Ianto to lead him down the ladder to his sparse quarters, where a camp bed and tiled washroom share what little space there is. Ianto begins to unbutton Jack’s shirt, trying not to breathe in the pungent fumes too deeply. 

Jack’s history is swathed in great vast shadows of obscurity, by Jack’s own design, but even so Ianto knows rather more about him than Jack probably intends. Ianto listens and looks and pieces things together quite skillfully, so while Jack is a puzzle he is not a complete enigma. For one thing, Ianto knows—or rather guesses—that Jack is not really from the States. He’d bet that the accent is something Jack picked up and never put down again, a convenient cover or a caprice that stuck. Ianto suspects that Jack is from someplace much farther away. Or maybe some _time_. 

That would certainly explain his affinity for John. Two men out of time together, somewhere—some _when_ —they’d never meant to go. 

Ianto folds up Jack’s shirt and lays it neatly on the counter, then, after a moment’s hesitation, begins removing Jack’s trousers. 

He also suspects that Jack is much older than he appears. He doesn’t know how much, any more than he knows when Jack was really born or how he ended up in Cardiff in 2007. But he knows there was a Captain Jack Harkness who fought in the second world war and Ianto doesn’t believe in coincidences, not ones that involve his impossibility of a boss. Besides, there’s something about Jack’s eyes: they’re not the eyes of a young man, even one who works for Torchwood. 

Ianto wonders if Jack watched John die. He wonders if Jack thinks of death, at times, with something other than simple fear. If Jack is old (and Ianto sometimes thinks he might be very old indeed), maybe death, however empty and full of nothingness it is, holds a kind of sacred fascination for Jack. Maybe tonight, his tears weren’t only for John’s passing out of life: maybe they were for Jack remaining in it. 

“You’re all set, sir,” Ianto says, because Jack is naked before him and still not moving. Jack merely looks at Ianto— _through_ Ianto—with empty eyes, so Ianto reaches behind him, hiding his mounting concern, and turns on the tap. With a gentle push, he steers Jack into the shower. After a moment, the hot water seems to awaken Jack, and he picks up the soap. 

Ianto retreats with ill-disguised relief. His pulse is fast and his palms are sweaty. Every time he sees Jack naked, a shudder of strangeness passes through him like a lightning bolt. He’s fine with sleeping with a man, it doesn’t bother him, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still surprising and foreign and a little unsettling. He’d never been attracted to a man before Jack, and he can’t help but wonder why Jack seems to be the sole exception. Then again, Jack is the exception to most rules. 

The sex, so far, has been astonishingly good, too. Jack is—well, he’s clearly eons more experienced than Ianto and it’s not as if Ianto was exactly a model of virtue growing up. Ianto likes it, wants to keep doing it, certainly; he hopes, too, that Jack will start initiating their encounters soon (he’s running out of clever proposition lines). He does worry that he’s more eager than Jack—though it’s hardly as though Jack’s enthusiasm can be doubted once they begin. All in all, Ianto thinks he’s managing to keep his head above water all right, however out of his depth he does sometimes feel. He’s learning the strokes, as it were, testing the currents, steering clear of dangerous debris like _feelings_ and _need._

“Ianto,” Jack says hesitantly, and Ianto looks up, blinking with surprise. Jack is standing in the bathroom doorway, still naked and dripping all over the floor. His skin is bright red, as if he’s been scrubbing it vigorously. 

“It won’t come out. The smell.” 

Ianto’s stomach flips over as he worries that Jack is having a Lady Macbeth moment, that John’s suicide triggered some destabilizing reaction in Jack’s head and now he’s stuck in the moment of trauma. But when Ianto comes closer he can tell that Jack is right. He does still smell faintly of gas. 

How did he get so saturated with the stuff without being affected by it? It’s one of those Jack mysteries, a question for Ianto to ponder later, when he’s alone and can’t sleep. Right now he has a more pressing question to answer: how to get Jack clean. 

“Well,” he says doubtfully, assessing the situation. He picks up a fresh flannel and considers telling Jack to just keep washing, but Jack’s limbs are limp in a way that suggests he’s not going to be able to do much more on his own. Ianto considers whether there is a better way to do this, whether he is about to cross a line better left intact, but Jack’s eyes are dead and helpless and Ianto can’t really stand it any longer. 

“Back in the shower with you,” he instructs. Jack obeys. Ianto reaches for the buttons of his own shirt, shrugging it off his shoulders and stepping deftly out of his trousers. When he’s naked too (and feeling every bit of it), he gets into the shower with Jack. 

Calmly, deferentially, as if he is doing nothing more than offering Jack a cup of coffee, Ianto picks up the soap and slides it over Jack’s bare shoulders, following with the flannel, rubbing it in small, gentle circles. Jack’s eyes widen in brief surprise and then flutter shut. He rests his weight against the shower wall, allowing Ianto to wipe him clean. 

Ianto keeps his head down against the spray and slides the flannel along Jack’s arms, his back, his muscled torso. He sets it aside for a moment and picks up the shampoo, tilting Jack’s head so he can massage the liquid into his hair till it foams and bubbles. Jack lets out a long sigh as Ianto’s fingers scrape gently against his scalp. Ianto is calm, steady, just a pair of hands and the feeling of water hot on his skin. 

He picks up the flannel again and dips it lower, smoothing it against Jack’s thighs, and then, because there is really no other way to do this, Ianto sinks down onto his knees. The floor of the shower is uncomfortably hard and the water is pouring over Ianto’s face and into his eyes, and he ducks his head as he runs the flannel around Jack’s calves and over his heels and ankles. He tries not to think of the implications of any of this (being on his knees, washing Jack’s feet). He is simply cleaning away the smell of gas, helping Jack when Jack can’t help himself. 

“Ianto.” Jack’s voice is hoarse and scratchy—the gas, Ianto thinks, and then looks up, blinking water from his eyes, to see that Jack is looking down at him. He’s come back, at least a little bit, from the great distance that separated them before; he _sees_ Ianto now, really sees him, and Ianto can feel it, and for the first time this evening he is truly frightened. 

Jack buries his hand in Ianto’s soaking hair, his fingers gentle against Ianto’s scalp, and then pulls Ianto’s head into his belly. Ianto gasps, smelling not gas now but the soft bright scent of Jack’s curled hair and the muskiness below. Jack is half-hard, Ianto sees, and it seems suddenly ludicrous that Ianto got into a shower naked with him and didn’t expect this to happen. But he didn’t—Jack was so listless, so wounded, and Ianto didn’t even consider engaging in their usual outrageous, irreverent, high-spirited games at a time like this.

The trouble is, he doesn’t think Jack’s considering it now, either. 

This is something else. 

Jack runs his thumb against the back of Ianto’s head, softly, tenderly, and Ianto knows that something is changing, right now, under this stream of water, in the middle of the night, in Cardiff at Christmas in 2007. 

He swallows back his fear and takes Jack into his mouth. 

Jack lets out a small contented sigh. Ianto moves his tongue as gently as he had his fingers, lathing up and down and in little circles until Jack is full and hard and his grip in Ianto’s hair tightens just a fraction. Ianto takes more in, still moving slowly, taking his time. He can feel Jack relaxing bit by bit, sinking bonelessly against the wall. Ianto risks an eyeful of water to glance up at him and the breath hitches in his throat: Jack’s head is tipped back, his throat long and sinuous, his eyelashes quivering against his cheeks and his chest rising and falling with the barest irregularity. He looks peaceful in a way Ianto has never seen him before, and vulnerable, too, open and exposed. 

Ianto’s rhythm falters as a wave of tenderness and then terror envelops him, and Jack’s fingers grip Ianto’s hair in warning. Ianto pulls off, sucking in air, and holds Jack’s hip as Jack shudders and spurts. Jack draws long, ragged breaths, eyes still closed, until he can manage to stand upright again. 

Ianto, heart pounding, gets to his feet. He ignores the rawness of his knees (though it smarts). He avoids Jack’s eyes, too, as he reaches over to turn off the tap. 

“Hey,” Jack says softly, stopping Ianto’s hand. Ianto looks up at him hesitantly, and Jack draws him in close. Ianto buries his head in the crook of Jack’s neck, inhaling his fresh, clean scent, equal parts relieved and unnerved by the embrace. When Jack’s hand snakes down between his legs he jumps, almost pulling away. 

Jack quiets him with a gentle _shh_ , and for the second time Ianto feels ridiculous for not having anticipated this. Jack’s hand is warm and soft and _perfect_ , and Ianto allows his cheek to rest against Jack’s neck as Jack strokes him firmly and tenderly, touching Ianto with a quiet deliberation he has never shown before. It isn’t long before Ianto feels heat gathering in his toes and his groin and then he is shuddering, gripping Jack’s shoulder for support as he comes. 

When Ianto is sufficiently recovered he reaches again for the tap, and this time Jack doesn’t stop him. Ianto steps out of the shower, needing suddenly to put some distance between himself and the older man. He towels off his hair, his body, gathering himself, buying himself time before he has to face Jack, before he sees whatever is—or isn’t—in Jack’s eyes. 

But when he turns around, Jack looks unsteady, almost asleep on his feet. Ianto crosses to him quickly, stopping him from sinking to the ground, and holds him up awkwardly as he wipes him dry. 

“Time for bed,” he says, and his voice sounds strange and unfamiliar to his own ears. 

Jack nods and allows Ianto to help him into pyjamas and between the sheets of the camp bed. Jack’s eyes flutter shut almost immediately, and Ianto watches him drift into sleep, feeling as though he is drifting, too, as if what happened in the shower untethered him somehow and he is lost, lost, floating into somewhere new without a map. 

He hesitates, then places a soft kiss on Jack’s forehead. He flips off the light and turns to go. 

“Thanks, Ianto,” Jack mumbles sleepily from the bed. Ianto swallows, feeling caught, but nothing more is forthcoming. He leaves the room, exits Jack’s office, makes his way out of the Hub and into the chilly night air of the bay. 

Something has changed. Something has changed, and it isn’t Ianto’s fault, but he is fairly sure he is the one who will suffer for it. He’d locked up his feelings in a tight little box at the back of his mind and thrown away the key, prepared never to look back. He hadn’t expected Jack to come along and pick the lock. 

He starts toward the garage, but then he remembers: John Ellis committed suicide in his car not four hours ago. There will be police, and more of the gas smell, and the usual cover-up stories to tell in the morning. Ianto thinks of Jack, alone in his tiny bed, and of his own flat, cold and dark and silent; and he turns again to the bay, a flutter of something fragile and pristine and uncageable starting up in his chest, heralding the end of Ianto’s brief and beautiful interlude of peace.


End file.
